Foundations 6: Will You Join Us? (1 Corinthians 15:1-8) - Calvary Baptist Cobourg

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The final question in our series is, “Will you join us?”

That question is an invitation on one hand, and it's a challenge on the other. When you ask someone, “will you join me?” It requires an answer—a yes or a no. There's a choice to be made. There is a step to be taken either forward or backwards.

This morning I'm going to invite people who do not know Jesus—who have not found who he is, who have not begun their life with him—to join us, to join me in my faith.

Will you? Will you join me in my faith?

I have a funny kind of a job. My job is basically talking, primarily about something that we can't see. About something that, if we're honest, the vast majority of people in the world don't think is true.

I spend a tremendous amount of time and energy focusing on stuff that most people categorize in their worldview alongside Pandora's box. And Winnie the Pooh. And the ‘birds aren’t real’ guy. That's what my faith looks like to most people. It's a story. It's an idea. It's something that somebody came up with and that has persisted.

I spend my time praying and reading and writing and preaching and chatting and listening about God. I'm a teacher, but I don't teach useful stuff like math, science, art, and music, or how to do your income tax or how to change the oil in your car. I teach about God.

    Now, I'm not gullible. I'm not weak. I'm not an idealist or a fantasist.

But I do believe that there is a better life beyond this one.

    I have no more than average distrust of scientists and governments. And I'm a bit cynical about the world in general and human nature.

But I do believe that there is such a thing as truth.

    I have seen in person, in real life, some of the worst of what human beings can do to each other. I've seen the effect a broken world can have on the human body and a human mind.

But I do believe that there is a purpose for us being here.

    I am neither super-optimistic nor super-pessimistic. I'm not particularly sentimental. I'm not particularly judgmental.

But I do believe that there is an ultimate destiny for every human being that is far better or far worse than we can possibly imagine.

    I love debate. I love nuance. I love untangling threads of ideas and debating ethics.

But I do believe that humanity is infinitely capable of lying to ourselves, of making excuses for our selfishness.

    I am a reasonably intelligent, more educated than average, post-modern, western person.

But I take, not just inspiration, but instruction from a hodgepodge of ancient writings millennia old, penned and compiled by people who didn't even know that the earth orbits the sun.

    I see the beauty of this world. I see the goodness and decency that is present in humanity.

But I do believe that our only real hope is found in the brutal death and resurrection of a Jewish man who lived, died, and lived again 2,000 years ago on the other side of the world.

    And I do believe that he is coming back.

I'm fully aware that a lot of what I believe is not seen as rational. It's definitely not cool. It's not particularly respected. It's barely even tolerated. It's maybe even a little bit weird. But I am convinced that it's true.

I really relate to this quote from Dr. Lee Beach, who is a professor at McMaster Divinity College. He said, 

“Some of the most important things in my life are things that most people don't agree with. But I can live with that.”

When I invite you to join me in my faith, yeah, I'm inviting you to become weird. I'm inviting you to become not cool. I'm inviting you to be rejected. I'm inviting you to be ignored. But I have to invite you to join me in my faith because I do believe it's true.

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The Christian faith is founded on a long, long story of family and heartbreak and good intentions; of disaster, faithfulness and persistence; plot twists of hope and despair and hope again, and a long, long walk home.

So why, after decades of living this faith, why do I still believe it? Because nothing has disproved it; nothing has convinced me otherwise. I still believe because it still makes sense within itself. It has internal consistency.

And because nothing else in the world makes so much sense of so much other stuff. For example:

    Can we agree that the world is not as it should be? Can we agree on that? I don't think I'm gonna get any argument. The world is infused with beauty, provision and healing, greatness and smallness, balance and sufficiency, laughter and tears and disease and decay and parasites and pain.

My faith is founded on that—that understanding that God created the world and called it good but we messed it up. In my experience of human nature, nothing is more believable than that we messed it up. Remember that stewardship we were talking about last week? That responsibility for what we've been entrusted with? Well, we reached into the till and took out a handful of 20s and tried to replace them with fakes, and everybody has been paying for that ever since.

    Can we agree that people are at the same time beautiful and ugly? Good and bad? Caring and selfish? Life-giving and poisonous? Right and wrong?

My faith is founded on that—on humanity’s being formed and shaped and given breath in the image of God, having his likeness stamped in our DNA. His goodness, his love, his forgiveness, his creativity, his eternal nature. But we took scissors and a sharpie to that image. And while every now and then when the light is just right we can still see a glimpse of that image... it is damaged.

    Can we agree that most of humanity believe that there is something better than this? That physical death is not the end? That we are made for more?

My faith is founded on that—on our inborn human sense of eternity. Different faith groups around the world explain and respond to that sense in different ways. But the core knowledge persists: death doesn't make sense. We are eternal. We have a purpose and a destination.

    Can we agree that whatever has gone wrong with the world, for whatever reason, we can't fix it? We've tried. We've tried education and civilization, culture, medicine, and technology. We've tried religion. All of which can only push back against the symptoms that point to a deeper problem, one that we can't even really name let alone cure.

My faith is founded on that—on the knowledge, the experience, and the history that we can't fix it. We keep trying the same palliatives, the same band-aids. We keep pursuing the same solutions. We keep sliding back down into the same ditches. We know so much more now than we did centuries ago about the world. About how our own minds work. But we are still just as broken as we have ever been.

    So can we agree that we need help? Can we agree that we can self-diagnose and prescribe all we like, but we cannot perform the necessary surgery? That only someone who has escaped the poison can brew the cure?

My faith is founded on that—on the truth that the one who made us not only wants to fix things, but promised that he would. He not only promised he would, but he can. He not only can, but he did. When the one who made us became one of us, free of the poison, free of the damage, free from the cycle of helpless futility. In our scripture focus this morning we read the words, 

“For I received what I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.”

He chose to be one of us. He chose to live as one of us. He chose to die as one of us, taking with him into the grave all of the poison and all of the damage. And then leaving it there when he stepped back into the world to tell us the good news that we can be free.

That's who Jesus is. He's not just Hallowe’en costume. He's not just a bobble-head for your dashboard. He's not a lucky charm. He's not a trope or an archetype. He's not a good example or a nice guy. He is God. He made us. He preserved us. He came to us. He died for us. He lives for us. And he will come again to take us home.

And yes, it's all a bit unlikely. But it's true.

When Jesus started his ministry, he began by inviting a group of people, one at a time, to “Follow me.” He just said “Follow me. Drop what you're doing and come. Just come along, see what I do. Watch me. Listen to me. Hear what I say. Ask me questions. Ask me stupid questions. Take a chance.”

He invited those twelve disciples to come together to live upside-down lives where the meek inherit the earth, those who mourn receive comfort, the hungry are fed, and the powerful and the proud are knocked off their high horses and onto their knees.

To live lives where death is not the end. To live lives where life is not all there is. Where hope and purpose are fulfilled.

This is my invitation: join me in my faith. Take a chance that it's true. Take a chance on it being the best thing ever. Give Jesus a chance to turn your worldview upside down. Start by reading the gospel of Luke. And ask questions. Ask him. Ask me. Talk to God. That's my invitation.

Will you join me? In my weird, true faith?

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